FLYING CARP

There will be a story today on the flying carp on the CBS evening news, 5:30pm.

I just watched it, one of the craziest things I ever saw. Those things jump out of the water from boat motor noises. I wonder what they are like on the end of a line? If we think the zebra mussel is a problem that is nothing compared to these things. Heaven help us if they start moving this way.

They already have! They’re in the Miss. and Ill. rivers now. Just a matter of time before they get to all of us. We can the thank the catfish farmers and the government for allowing them to be imported over here.

from what I understand they make up as much as 80% of the fish biomass on the lower miss….. thats pretty much total devastation of the native fishery….. if it happens here it will be all over but the crying….. and I guess the carp shooting….

Here is a post from last year with a video clip for those of you who missed the news clip.
Asian Carp Video

If it was a feasible measure, I’d fully support a “whatever you have to do to fix it” campaign. If they’re going to be that hard on our native waters and the species in them, pull a “Noah” and gather up what we need to replenish the area and drain the basin or something that’d force them to die. With the presence of big and little fish, I can’t think of much else to get them all. No doubt it’d be a major undertaking………..but in my mind………….the sacrifice, no matter what it needs to be, would be worth the end result……….no more flying carp!

Hey, Pup – Draining the basin? That could prove to be a bit of an engineering challenge don’t you think?

Nothing wrong with a little job security for those engineers, is there?

The river gets used for so much that I already know it’d never happen…………..so all I can say is that I’d support a “Whatever it takes” campaign. No matter how large, difficult, expensive, or inconvenient…………..I’d just like to see those buggers removed from our resources!

there best shot at them would be during the hottest part of summer when the ecosystem is already oxygen stressed… then dump something in the river that takes the rest of the oxygen… that will kill pretty much everything….. trouble is… the tributaries, and backwaters…. not to mention springs or ANY inflow of oxygen….. to be totally effective… you need a total kill….. its most likely beyond our ability to produce….

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its most likely beyond our ability to produce….

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Never, and I mean NEVER tell that to an engineer

Wow. That might do it. Let me know what day they are planning this. I might stay of the river that day.

Let me know too. I want to be right underneath it when it hits cause I don’t think I want to be around to see the aftermath.

Herb, I’ll make room for you under my hat

Ecnook’s hat will protect us! (singing) Duck, and cover…

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I’m not suggesting that we nuke the river, just an example of a team of scientists overcoming what were seen as impassable obstacles on their way to one of the greatest (and most horrible) inventions of the 20th century (if not all time).

Unfortunately, for all of us, there is no will to solve this problem. It’s just too stinkin’ bad for the fisherfolk and the people who care about the river. Just like with zebs, it’ll be “Oops, sorry we f’ed up your river… that’s really too bad, it was nice.” We’ll see Congress allocate a pittance to study the problem, is 100K enough? Let’s make it an even 2 mil. In the meantime the DOJ be spending 15 billion to install webcams into everyone’s bedrooms to insure they’re not participating in ‘unapproved activities.’

The fact is there’s a creature out there attacking our river. It sounds to me like it has all the worst attributes of Mary Shelley’s monster with the ability to reproduce like Vonnegut’s ice nine, and it’s headed our way while we sit on our asses and do nothing or next to it.

I wonder how the “country of origin” handles them? If there is some sort of natural control, how they are utilized, how the other species of fish in the same river system are doing, things like that. This could be a new sorce of crop fertilizer, dog food, river cod, sporting clays.

Yeah! Herb buddy, I’ll supply the gun and ammo, you supply the boat and beer. Actually, maybe we could get someone from River Pro Boats to sponsor us as a team. There is no outboard to shoot around on one of those boats. Team Asian Carp Shooting, the next sport in the Great Outdoor Games brought to you by ESPN the leader in redneck sports. Heck, if they can give some guy and a dog a gold medal for jumping off a dock, they can give Herb and I one for shooting carp out the back of a boat at 30mph.

For some odd reason, when the terms “redneck” and “asian carp shooting” enter the mind, something tells me it’s being discussed behind closed outhouse doors as we speak.

Speaking of Zebras, my trolling line tells me their population is all most zero. I just do not find them on my cranks that touch bottom any more.

We may be missing a great opportunity here. Maybe these things are great game fish. I think we may end up starting a “Flying Carp Forum”. I see a whole new generation of fishing equipment. The “Over and Under” St Croix Fishing Rod – a medium-heavy, 7′ rod on top and a 12 gauge single shot under. Gettum on the fly or gettum under the water.

Now,that is funny!

It’s a promising idea Comanchero……………except the stinkin’ logs are plankton feeders…………like a paddlefish. We could snag like the dickens but I fear we’d kill a lot of the good fish in the process.

I had thoughts along the lines of Rivereye’s stated possibility but wondered how far south would everything suffer? If the carp are only in …………… say, 300 miles worth of river, I didn’t want to extinguish everything clear to the Gulf. Maybe on the south side of the critters presence we could install some giant aerators to re-oxygenate the water?

Gianni,

For a second there I thought YOU’D put a webcam in my house and took that picture! I was experimenting with some Sheepheads and had a little “mushroom cloud” incident on the stove!

Maybe the boat manufacturers could design a way of mounting a gang plank where we could strap someone to and with baseball bat in hand proceed to do some carp control.
We need some imagination here.
All kidding aside, I don’t think there will be much done about it except for some expensive non-result studies.

Spearin or bowin these things might be great fun. Imagine the mid air shots.

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Spearin or bowin these things might be great fun. Imagine the mid air shots.

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I can only imagine the death toll on the river when Asian Carp Season starts. Sitting there, minding my own business, doing some lead line trolling of some cranks, when WHAM, arrow right through the chest.
Maybe we could start a new club, I think A.C.E.S. would be good. Asian Carp Eradication Society. We could do fund raising for the families who lose loved ones when the above scenario plays out about 5-6 times every season.
Steve

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All kidding aside, I don’t think there will be much done about it except for some expensive non-result studies.

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Sadly Herb, I have to agree. Think that sentence there of yours pretty much sums it up.

On the plus side, they may help out with the Jet Ski problem!

I wonder if we could train them like the military trains dolphins?????

Dan

This is a wild guess at what they do to deal with them where they came from.

Eat them.

I could be wrong on this. Who knows.

I could be wrong, but didn’t Ron Schara do a show on this on the Minnesota River above Shakopee with a guy from the DNR where Ron and the other guy were cruising in some really shallow water and fish were jumping out of the water into the boat?

well they ARE Asian carp…. yep.. they eat em in asia…. in fact they are quite popular… so Ive read….
as for people being shot while out trolling cranks.. I dont think Asian carp eat cranks…. and there are unlikely to be any predators left after the prey populations crash because the carp ate their phytoplanton food source… we are talking about a close to total collapse of the ecosystem….. Gianni’s A bomb is not far off… except that will get a few of us too!…. the impact will on our fish populations WILL be severe….. if whats happened farther down river is any indication…. heres a quote I found from the great lakes fisheries commission….

“Two species of Asian carp-the silver and the bighead carps-escaped into the Mississippi River from southern aquaculture facilities in the early 1990s when the facilities were flooded. Steadily, the carp have made their way northward, becoming the most abundant species in some areas of the Mississippi, out-competing native fish, and causing severe hardship to the people who fish the river. The Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal connects the Mississippi River to the Great Lakes. Currently, the carp are in the canal and have been sighted approximately 40 miles from Lake Michigan.”

We are pretty much “screwed” this fish is IN the mississippi… and there is no blocking it… apparently they thrive in cooler water so the farther north they come the better their going to like it…. its hard to predict impact… but my gut feel is its going to be anywhere from significant to tragic…… but maybe they will put a bounty on them?